In this paper I endeavour to bridge the gap between the history of material culture and the history of ideas. I do this by focussing on the intersection between metaphysics and technology—what I call ‘applied metaphysics’—in the oeuvre of the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. By scrutinising the interplay between texts, objects and images in Kircher’s work, it becomes possible to describe the multiplicity of meanings related to his artefacts. I unearth as yet overlooked metaphysical and religious meanings (...) of the camera obscura, for instance, as well as of various other optical and magnetic devices. Today, instruments and artefacts are almost exclusively seen in the light of a narrow economic and technical concept. Historically, the ‘use’ of artefacts is much more diverse, however, and I argue that it is time to historicize the concept of ‘utility’.Keywords: Jesuit science; Utility; Material culture; History of ideas; Magnetic theology; Light metaphysics; Camera obscura; Technological expressionism; Philosophy of artefacts. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Beitrag nimmt die unter anderem von Walter Benjamin zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts im Rahmen einer Auseinandersetzung um die konzeptionelle Ausrichtung der Germanistik geäußerte Forderung in Augenschein, dass der spekulative Drang zum Philosophischen mit der verweilenden Aufmerksamkeit fürs Einzelne zu kombinieren sei, um die gleichzeitige Geltung geistesgeschichtlicher Zusammenhänge und historischer Details, von konkretem Gegenstand und allgemeinem Wesen, in den Blick zu bekommen. Am Beispiel von Athanasius Kirchers Traktat Scrutinium physico-medicum von 1658 wird gezeigt, dass es an Benjamins (...) Forderung eine frühneuzeitliche Annäherung gibt, in der die Wahrnehmungsform der spekulativen Aufmerksamkeit zu einer Möglichkeit wird, die Geistesgeschichte als Ergebnis eines Wechselverhältnisses zwischen Fokus und Entgrenzung zu verstehen. (shrink)

If anyone ever lived up to our image of a baroque Universalgelehrter, it may have been the Jesuit natural philosopher Athanasius Kircher, whose life and interests spanned most of the 17th century. In his prolific career, Kircher wrote at least 14 major works, on subjects as varied as light, magnetism, music, geology, combinatorics, and Sinology. Thomas Leinkauf’s thorough, penetrating study of Kircher’s life and work does a tremendous job of making the Jesuit’s work both comprehensible and (...) fascinating, as well as granting us a vision of the inner workings of Kircher’s mind, a mind formed both by his period and his position in the history of ideas, and driven by an unusual creativity and capacity for synthesis. (shrink)

Summary The famous Jesuit father Athanasius Kircher (1602?1680) tried to interpret the Creation of the world and to explain the origin of life in the last book of his geocosmic encyclopedia, Mundus subterraneus (Amsterdam, 1664?1665). His interpretation largely depended on the ?concept of seeds? which was derived from the tradition of Renaissance ?chymical? (chemical and alchemical) philosophy. The impact of Paracelsianism on his vision of the world is also undeniable. Through this undertaking, Kircher namely developed a corpuscular (...) theory for the spontaneous generation of living beings. The present study examines this theory and its relationship with Kircher's chymical interpretation of the Creation in order to place it in its own intellectual and historical context and will uncover one of its most important sources. (shrink)

This essay explores the history of the concept of _monstrum_ from Francis Bacon’s _Novum Organum_ to Athanasius Kircher’s _Mundus Subterraneaus_ (1664), as well as its relationship with the origins of science; as in the early modern age, the term _monstra_ is considered as a synonym for _mirabilia naturae_. The introductory part focuses on the difficult definition of “monster”, starting from Aristotle’s famous sentence in _De generatione animalium_: whoever does not looks like his parents, or whatever happens in a (...) different way from the “generality of cases”, is included within the category of the “monstrous”. Monster is a being, whose anomaly represents a warning; therefore, monsters may be considered as signs, susceptible of an allegorical, moral and even political interpretation. In another acceptation of the term, monsters may be considered as the privileged witnesses of the richness and fecundity of nature. In the second part, Bacon’s theory of monsters is exposed: they are classified as _instantiae deviantes_, within that interpretation of nature, through which the Lord Chancellor lays the epistemological foundations of the modern science. In the third, fourth and fifth parts, a taxonomy of monsters is given: at first, by means of the _cabinets des curiosités_, which flourished in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy, from Naples to Rome, from Bologna to Milan, with famous collectors such as Ferrante Imperato, Ulisse Aldrovandi, Manfredo Settala, Athanasius Kircher; then, through the “books of secrets”, which are at the same time a new, successful literary genre and a way of thinking nature, an aspect of natural history. Among the “professors of secrets”, there are Giovan Battista Della Porta, Ambroise Paré, Leonardo Fioravanti, Jean Fernel, Pierre Borel, Kenelm Digby, and Athanasius Kircher, again, with some disciples of his, such as Kaspar Schott. Secrets of nature and _mirabilia naturae_ are finally compared: the classical list of _mirabilia_, from Pliny the Elder to Kircher, completes the taxonomy of monsters. The sixth and last part of this essay offers an explicative theory of monsters and prodigies: the marvels of nature are magnetic phenomena, which seem to imply a mysterious action at a distance. Such magnetic action can be accounted for on the basis of the Renaissance, Ficinian and Neoplatonic concept of spirit – conceived as the universal vehicle of occult sympathies and antipathies - and then through the seventeenth concepts of corpuscular effluvia, introduced by Pierre Gassendi in his _Physica_ (1658), and _sphaera activitatis_, produced by the effluvia which each body emits, and surrounding it. This sphere is the place when most of marvelous phenomena happen. (shrink)

These are set against introductory essays describing the philosophical, historical and psychological approaches, making this a uniquely inclusive overview.

Empirical approaches on topics such as consciousness, self-awareness, or introspective perspective, need a conceptual framework so that the emerging, still unconnected findings can be integrated and put into perspective. We introduce a model of self-consciousness derived from phenomenology, philosophy, the cognitive, and neurosciences. We will then give an overview of research data on one particular aspect of our model, self-agency, trying to link findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Finally, we will expand on pathological aspects of self-agency, and in particular (...) on psychosis in schizophrenia. We show, that a deficient self-monitoring system underlies, in part, hallucinations and formal thought (language) disorder in schizophrenia. We argue, that self-consciousness is a valid construct and can be studied with the instruments of cognitive and neuroscience. (shrink)

Recent advances in DNA sequencing have revolutionized the field of genomics, making it possible for even single research groups to generate large amounts of sequence data very rapidly and at a substantially lower cost. These high‐throughput sequencing technologies make deep transcriptome sequencing and transcript quantification, whole genome sequencing and resequencing available to many more researchers and projects. However, while the cost and time have been greatly reduced, the error profiles and limitations of the new platforms differ significantly from those of (...) previous sequencing technologies. The selection of an appropriate sequencing platform for particular types of experiments is an important consideration, and requires a detailed understanding of the technologies available; including sources of error, error rate, as well as the speed and cost of sequencing. We review the relevant concepts and compare the issues raised by the current high‐throughput DNA sequencing technologies. We analyze how future developments may overcome these limitations and what challenges remain. (shrink)

The literary qualities of humanists’ writings convey how play and illusion helped form their ideas about knowledge, ethics, and metaphysics. Timothy Kircher argues for new ways of appreciating Renaissance humanist philosophy.

Dans cet ouvrage de 430 pages – dont neuf consacrées à un index des auteurs anciens et modernes – Geneviève Clerico, Bernard Colombat et Jean Soubiran ont réuni 22 textes écrits par Françoise Desbordes de 1981 à 2000 et généralement publiés antérieurement dans des revues scientifiques ou actes de colloques. Ces études ne concernent pas la rhétorique, domaine privilégié de l’activité scientifique de F.D., ni les analyses textuelles, les contributions de F.D. à ces disciplines ayant fait l’obje..

Dans cet ouvrage de 430 pages – dont neuf consacrées à un index des auteurs anciens et modernes – Geneviève Clerico, Bernard Colombat et Jean Soubiran ont réuni 22 textes écrits par Françoise Desbordes de 1981 à 2000 et généralement publiés antérieurement dans des revues scientifiques ou actes de colloques. Ces études ne concernent pas la rhétorique, domaine privilégié de l’activité scientifique de F.D., ni les analyses textuelles, les contributions de F.D. à ces disciplines ayant fait l’obje...

Cet ouvrage a été réalisé à partir de la thèse soutenue par l’auteur le premier décembre 2006 à Paris IV. Le titre met bien en évidence les multiples systèmes de la langue dans lequel intervient le terme étudié, que l’on a pu caractériser de « Protée syntaxique ». Dès l’introduction, le problème est bien posé et la démarche bien explicitée avec l’annonce d’un plan justifié par la place donnée à la perspective historique – ce qui ne surprend pas chez un (...) jeune chercheur qui s’est intéressé à pl.. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage a été réalisé à partir de la thèse soutenue par l’auteur le premier décembre 2006 à Paris IV. Le titre met bien en évidence les multiples systèmes de la langue dans lequel intervient le terme étudié, que l’on a pu caractériser de « Protée syntaxique ». Dès l’introduction, le problème est bien posé et la démarche bien explicitée avec l’annonce d’un plan justifié par la place donnée à la perspective historique – ce qui ne surprend pas chez un (...) jeune chercheur qui s’est intéressé à pl... (shrink)